By Paul Tremblay
Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (Review)
Tremblay has done it again.
No matter what genre the author takes on, he always succeeds in creating surprise and suspense even when pursuing the most mundane of premises.
One night, Elizabeth gets the call that no mother ever wants to answer: her son, Tommy, has mysteriously disappeared. Following several characters close to Tommy, the story unfolds as the truth about what happened that night at Devil’s Rock comes to light. But the deeper they look into the case, the more strange and scary things become.
“Maybe the people who go away are the ones who are not afraid, not sad, and not alone. Maybe there’s a place where they gather and say things like What is to be done with all the silly people we left behind?”
No matter what Tremblay writes, readers can always be assured there will be an unsettling ambiguity, encircled with classic horror elements made new that are all the more terrifying because of their solid grounding in reality and truth, usually in a sensible and well-articulated setting with complete and complex characters. And Disapearance at Devil’s Rock checks all those oh-so-good boxes. Which means that, although it’s my least favorite of the three Tremblay books I’ve read, it’s still very good.
“But ghosts aren’t white and bright. Ghosts are shadows of someone or something gone wrong.”
Although for any parent this may be the most terrifying type of horror, sorting this book into the genre seems less than accurate. Reading more like a straightforward mystery or thriller, albeit a very good one with hints of the surreal, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock takes its sweet time to get into the good stuff. But once we finally get there it makes the waiting worthwhile. Still, with a lengthy lead-up and somewhat wordy writing , the case could be made for cutting the novel down.
Nevertheless a solid mystery with a touch of terror, I rated Disappearance at Devil’s Rock 4 out of 5 stars.
You can read Disappearance at Devil’s Rock and other books for free with a trial of Scribd.
Violence and murder.
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